John W. Harreld | |
Jr/Sr1: | United States Senator |
State1: | Oklahoma |
Term Start1: | March 4, 1921 |
Term End1: | March 4, 1927 |
Predecessor1: | Thomas Gore |
Successor1: | Elmer Thomas |
State2: | Oklahoma |
District2: | 5th |
Term Start2: | November 8, 1919 |
Term End2: | March 4, 1921 |
Preceded2: | Joseph Bryan Thompson |
Succeeded2: | Fletcher B. Swank |
Birth Name: | John William Harreld |
Birth Date: | 24 January 1872 |
Birth Place: | Butler County, Kentucky |
Death Place: | Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
Party: | Republican |
John William Harreld (January 24, 1872December 26, 1950) was a United States representative and Senator from Oklahoma. Harreld was the first Republican senator elected in Oklahoma and represented a shift in Oklahoma politics.[1]
Harreld was born in Butler County, Kentucky, near Morgantown to Martha Helm and Thomas Nelson Harreld.[2] He attended public schools, the normal school at Lebanon, Ohio, and Bryant & Stratton Business College of Louisville, Kentucky, where he taught while studying law.[3] Admitted to the bar in 1889, he begin his practice in Morgantown.[3] He was prosecuting attorney of Butler County from 1892 to 1896.[3] After marrying Laura Ward on October 20, 1889, and having a son, Ward,[2] he moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma, in 1906.[3] He was a referee in bankruptcy from 1908 to 1915, when he resigned to become an executive with an oil corporation.[3] He moved to Oklahoma City in 1917 and engaged in the production of oil and continued the practice of law.[3] After his first wife's death, he married his wife's sister, Thurlow Ward, in 1931.[2]
Harreld was elected, on November 8, 1919, as a Republican to the Sixty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Joseph B. Thompson[2] and served from November 8, 1919, to March 4, 1921. He was not a candidate for renomination, having become a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator; he was elected to the Senate in 1920 and served from March 4, 1921, to March 4, 1927; he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1926.[3] He served as Senate chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs.[3] He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1940 to the Seventy-seventh Congress and returned to Oklahoma City, where he continued the practice of law and his interest in the oil business.[3]
He died in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1950, and was interred in Fairlawn Cemetery.[2]